ABSTRACTAt least in some dialogues, Plato has been thought to hold the so-called Two Worlds Theory, according to which there can be belief but not knowledge about sensibles, and knowledge but not belief about forms. The Phaedo is one such dialogue. In this paper, I explore some key passages that might be thought to support TW, and ask whether they in fact do so. I also consider the related issue of whether the Phaedo argues that, if knowledge is possible (...) at all, we can have it only when discarnate. (shrink)

Despite many points of divergence, social scientists and social theorists seem united by one primary concern: to identify what it is people are doing. The thought that this might count as not only a viable but centrally important concern is grounded in a scepticism about the ability of societies’ ordinary members to reliably correctly identify their own and others’ actions. In this scepticism, such social scientists and social theorists usually situate themselves in opposition to ethnomethodologists and Peter Winch. This scepticism (...) is grounded in a belief that ordinary or competent members of societies are unreliable authorities on the identity of their own and others’ actions because they are subject to systems of sociological refraction. The idea being that ordinary members of society are systematically misled as to the identity of their actions and those of their peers because they — or their perceptions of actions — are subject to the refractive properties of ideology, or folk theories of action, and so on. In this paper, I subject to analysis this core commitment of much social science and social theory. (shrink)

A structural similarity between deflationism and a certain semantically excessive interpretation of the results of cognitive science is developed. Both views incorporate "two-worlds" accounts of the nature of representation. But two-worlds accounts are committed to what I call quasi-technically “the worst possible theory of truth”. This renders the semantically excessive interpretation committed to the worst possible theory of truth; but it renders deflationism internally inconsistent or incoherent.

This paper explores the eugenic thought of Yamanouchi Shigeo (1876–1973), who was trained in plant cytology under the tutelage of botanist and eugenicist John Coulter (1851–1928) in the USA, and later became one of the early and important popularizers of eugenic ideas in Japan. His career demonstrates a direct link between Japanese and US eugenics. Despite his academic training and research at various internationally renowned institutions, numerous publications, and longevity, his life has received little scholarly attention. By the early twentieth (...) century, most biologists in Japan, as in the USA, began accepting Mendelian evolutionary theory and rejecting the Lamarckian notion of inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, Yamanouchi Shigeo's eugenic view represents a paradox: he was a Mendelian cytologist sympathetic to Lamarckism. Was his ‘nurture’‐oriented eugenic view unscientific? Is that why he was largely ignored in the history of botany in Japan? This study attempts to answer these questions and to analyse the origins and distinct features of Yamanouchi's eugenic ideas by situating Yamanouchi's eugenic thought historically and culturally. After examining his scientific papers, popular writings, and documents of various organizations to which he belonged, I argue that Yamanouchi's ‘softer’ (or less biologically deterministic) perspective may have reflected the Japanese desire to catch up with the dominant ‘race’ by using eugenics without accepting permanent inferior status. (shrink)

Art appreciation often involves contemplation beyond immediate perceptual experience. However, there are challenges to incorporating such processes into a comprehensive theory of art appreciation. Can appreciation be captured in the responses to individual artworks? Can all forms of contemplation be defined? What properties of artworks trigger contemplation? We argue that such questions are fundamental to a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation, and we suggest research that may assist in refining this framework.

This book presents essays and scientific contributions examining the link between popular media and politics. The essays focus on the question of how political and social change, concepts of power, and utopian elements are reflected in selected films and television series. The book applies a political science perspective, covering theories from political philosophy, political sociology and international relations, and examines a wide range of movies and TV series, such as The Godfather, Fight Club, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. (...) It will appeal to anyone interested in studying how political ideas, concepts and messages can be illustrated and visualized using the complex media of movies and TV series. (shrink)

There is no grander topic for us today, and Wolin's treatment is penetrating, thorough, and authoritative. This is a major work of political theory.

The foregoing set of theorems forms an effective foundation for the theory of situations and worlds. All twenty-five theorems seem to be basic, reasonable principles that structure the domains of properties, relations, states of affairs, situations, and worlds in true and philosophically interesting ways. They resolve 15 of the 19 choice points defined in Barwise (1989) (see Notes 22, 27, 31, 32, 35, 36, 39, 43, and 45). Moreover, important axioms and principles stipulated by situation theorists are derived (see (...) Notes 33, 37, and 38). This is convincing evidence that the foregoing constitutes a theory of situations. Note that worlds are just a special kind of situation, and that the basic theorems of world theory, which were derived in previous work, can still be derived in this situation-theoretic setting. So there seems to be no fundamental incompatibility between situations and worlds — they may peacably coexist in the foundations of metaphysics. The theory may therefore reconcile two research programs that appeared to be heading off in different directions. And we must remind the reader that the general metaphysical principles underlying our theory were not designed with the application to situation theory in mind. This suggests that the general theory and the underlying distinction have explanatory power, for they seem to relate and systematize apparently unrelated phenomena. (shrink)

The Role and Nature of Freedom in Two Normative Theories of Democracy The article examines the role and the nature of freedom in two normative concepts of democracy, in the work of Hans Kelsen and of Emanuel Rádl. Both authors wrote their work on democracy between the two world wars. Kelsen formulated his concept of democracy in On the Substance and Value of Democracy (1920), a book which has clearly been influenced by the political thinking of Kant and Rousseau. (...) Kelsen shares Rousseau's idea of general will and on this basis the principle of majority. Rádl outlines his theory of freedom and democracy in The War between the Czechs and the Germans (1928), Nationality as a Scientific Problem (1929) and On German Revolution (1933). Rádl distinguishes between three types of freedom and democracy: natural, majority and contractual. Rádl asserts that only in the third type of freedom, in which freedom is connected with responsibility and the law is freedom true. He considers the first type of freedom to be anarchical freedom, which can easily be misused. The second type of freedom is better than the first, but worse than the third. The author compares these concepts of freedom and democracy then and today and shows how they are linked to the questions of justice and solidarity at national and cosmopolitan levels. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper investigates the broad ideological conflict between world views on corporate culture. Two views are identified: one encompassing standard liberal economic philosophy; the other taking broader notions of corporate culture from ethics theory. The conflict that surrounded the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle is used as an illustration of the current conflict between these views. The writings of Alasdair MacIntyre are employed as a means of elucidating and reconciling these two world views.

This article offers a comparative study of seven German biographies of Karl Marx (1818–1883) that were published between the two world wars. The interpretations of Marx’s theory of historical materialism presented in these biographies fall into three groups or approaches: the orthodox, the neo-Kantian, and the psychological. Some biographies place Marx the revolutionary above Marx the theorist, while others reverse this order. Similarly, some of the biographies explain the relationship between Marx’s life and thought by adopting the “experience–psychology–thought” (...) framework. The orthodox approach emphasizes the objectivity of cognition in the base–superstructure relationship. Yet both the orthodox and the neo-Kantian approach, which stresses Kant’s cognitive critique and the “is–ought” dualism, fail to grasp Marx’s subject–object dialectics, while the psychological approach undermines the theoretical significance of historical materialism. In comparing and assessing these works I argue that the biographers’ historical and scholarly horizons are dictated by their political standpoint and academic perspective and thus determine their choice of approach, which not only indicates if they will lean toward the theoretical or the revolutionary Marx, but also why they fail to adequately deal with the relationship between Marx’s life and his thought. Nevertheless, I conclude that these biographies, despite their various shortcomings, establish the basic paradigm and parameters of any biography of Marx. (shrink)

In this work, we evaluate the status of both theory and empirical evidence in the field of experimental rest-break research based on a framework that combines mental-chronometry and psychometric-measurement theory. To this end, we provide a taxonomy of rest breaks according to which empirical studies can be classified. Then, we evaluate the theorizing in both the basic and applied fields of research and explain how popular concepts relate to each other in contemporary theoretical debates. Here, we highlight differences (...) between all these models in the light of two symbolic categories, termed the resource-based and satiation-based model, including aspects related to the dynamics and the control mechanisms at work. Based on a critical assessment of existing methodological and theoretical approaches, we finally provide a set of guidelines for both theory building and future empirical approaches to the experimental study of rest breaks. We conclude that a psychometrically advanced and theoretically focused research of rest and recovery has the potential to finally provide a sound scientific basis to eventually mitigate the adverse effects of ever increasing task demands on performance and well-being in a multitasking world at work and leisure. (shrink)

This is a most helpful survey of the rise and development of a new attitude towards philosophical investigation among a number of influential thinkers in England. The prime movers in this “revolution in philosophy” have been mathematicians, like Russell, logicians, like Ramsey and Wisdom, professors of philosophy, such as Ayer and Ryle; they have all felt the massive influence of Wittgenstein, and they make use of symbolic logic as an instrument. A movement which, in origin, was concerned especially with mathematics (...) and logic, and soon became an attempt to work out a perfect language, and, from an assumed empiricism, to use the structure of language to reveal the structure of reality, was bound to be highly technical and to give rise to many divergent theories as various obstacles to this ambitious programme were met with. Moreover, many of the more notable contributions of these thinkers are found in books that are intelligible only to one acquainted with symbolic logic, or in articles in specialized reviews that are not easily accessible to all. The movement has already passed through two well-defined phases, and has now entered on another. The time is thus ripe for such a book as this which traces, in a language which all can follow, the course of development, and the reasons for it, within this tendency, and introduces us to the present state of investigation and the main lines along which such investigation is proceeding. (shrink)

Within the Anglo-American world, economic liberalism is generally viewed as having only one progenitor—Adam Smith—and one offspring—neoliberalism. But it actually has two. The work of G. W. F. Hegel was also very influential on the development of economic liberalism, at least in the German-speaking world, and the most powerful contemporary instantiation of economic liberalism within that world is not neoliberlaism, but ordoliberalism, although this is generally unknown and certainly unacknowledged outside of Continental Europe. Accordingly, what I am (...) going to be doing in this piece is trying to bring ordoliberalism more directly into the light—I will argue that by comparing and contrasting the views of Smith and Hegel or at least between how Smith and Hegel tend to be currently (mis)understood, we can better understand both the roots and the nature of these two contemporary incarnations of economic liberalism, and the light this sheds, in turn, brings some interesting and important features of these two contemporary theories into view. From Smith, for example, neoliberals took the idea of the invisible hand, although I am going to argue that contemporary advocates of invisible hand theory have largely misconstrued or at the very least overstated the significance of this metaphor. From Hegel, in contrast, ordoliberals took the idea of the civil society, and I will argue that the civil society is a much better metaphor not only for Hegel's but also for Smith's views. Indeed, I will argue that ordoliberalism, not neoliberalism, is a better and more coherent instantiation of economic liberalism than neoliberalism could ever be. (shrink)

In his "Two concepts of possible worlds", Peter Van Inwagen explores two kinds of views about the nature of possible worlds : abstractionism and concretism. The latter is the view defended by David Lewis who claims that possible worlds are concrete spatio-temporal universes, very much like our own, causally and spatio-temporally disconnected from each other. The former is the view of the majority who claims that possible worlds are some kind of abstract objects – such as propositions, properties, states of (...) affairs, or sets of numbers. In this paper, I will develop this view in an 'extreme abstractionist' way, appealing to a 'modal bundle theory', and I will try to show that it is preferable to the standard abstractionist ones. Finally, I will compare this kind of abstractionism to concretism, only to find that the difference between the two is minimal. (shrink)

A. Plantinga develops a challenging critique of Castañeda's guise theory, by identifying fundamental intuitions that guise theory gives up and by developing several objections to the guise-theoretic world view as a whole. In this paper, I examine whether Plantinga's criticisms apply to the theory of abstract objects. The theory of abstract objects and guise theory can be fruitfully compared because they share a common intellectual heritage---both follow Ernst Mally [1912] in postulating a special realm (...) of objects distinguished by their "internal" or "encoded" properties. Despite this common heritage, however, the theories organize, develop, and apply these special objects in distinctive ways. The two metaphysical systems, therefore, differ significantly, and these differences become important when one considers Plantinga's critique of guise theory. In this essay, the author shows that the theory of abstract objects anticipates and addresses most of Plantinga's concerns about guise theory, by preserving intuitions guise theory has abandoned. (shrink)

Cosmology as Weltanschauung is as old as the world. Cosmology as a physical discipline, however, is a child of this century, born in 1917, when Albert Einstein and Willem de Sitter first applied the theory of general relativity to the space-time of the entire universe. When did the child come of age and become a fully-fledged science? A popular myth shared by many practitioners holds that this did not happen until 1965, when the discovery of the 2.7K cosmic (...) microwave background radiation validated the concept of the hot big bang. Earlier accomplishments culminating in the 1965 event include the derivation of evolving relativistic models by Alexander Friedmann and George Lemaître, Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the redshift-magnitude relationship and George Gamow’s theory of the primordial nucleosynthesis containing the prediction of the microwave background left from the hot and dense past of the universe. This linear development is thrown into sharper relief in textbooks, by referring to an inarticulate.. (shrink)

We consider various curious features of general relativity, and relativistic field theory, in two spacetime dimensions. In particular, we discuss: the vanishing of the Einstein tensor; the failure of an initial-value formulation for vacuum spacetimes; the status of singularity theorems; the non-existence of a Newtonian limit; the status of the cosmological constant; and the character of matter fields, including perfect fluids and electromagnetic fields. We conclude with a discussion of what constrains our understanding of physics in different dimensions.

A brief historical comment on scientific knowledge as Socratic ignorance -- Some critical comments on the text of this book, particularly on the theory of truth Exposition [1933] -- Problem of Induction (Experience and Hypothesis) -- Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge -- Formulation of the Problem -- The problem of induction and the problem of demarcation -- Deductivtsm and Inductivism -- Comments on how the solutions are reached and preliminary presentation of the solutions -- Rationalism (...) and empiricism-deductivism and inductivism -- The possibility of a deductivist psychology of knowledge -- The Problem of Induction -- The infinite regression (Hume's argument) --The inductivist positions -- The Normal-Statement Positions -- The normal-statement positions: naive inductivism, strict positivism and apriorism -- Critique of strict positivism - twofold transcendence of natural laws -- The transcendental method - presentation of apriorism -- Critique of apriorism -- Kant and Fries -- Supplement to the critique of apriorism. (Psychologism and transcendentalism in Kant and Fries.-On the question of the empirical basis.) -- Probability Positions -- The probability positions - subjective belief in probability -- Statements about the objective probability of events -- Probability as an objective degree of validity of universal empirical statements -- One way of more closely defining the concept of the probability of a hypothesis (primary and secondary probability of hypotheses). The concept of simplicity -- The concept of the corroboration of a hypothesis - positivist, pragmatist and probabilistic interpretations of the concept of corroboration -- The infinite regression of probability statements -- Pseudo-Statement Positions -- The pseudo-statement positions: new formulation of the problem -- Natural laws as "instructions for the formation of statements" -- "True - false" or "useful - useless"? Consistent pragmatism --Difficulties of consistent pragmatism -- Tool and schema as purely pragmatic constructs -- Natural laws as propositional functions -- Conventionalism -- The pseudo-statement positions will temporarily be put away: conventionalism -- The three interpretations of axiomatic systems. (The circle of problems surrounding conventionalism) -- Conventionalist implicit and explicit definitions Propositional function and propositional equation -- Conventionalist propositional equations as tautological general implications -- Can axiomatic-deductive systems also be understood as consequence classes of pure propositional functions (of pseudo-statements)? -- The coordinative definitions of empiricism: synthetic general implications -- Conventionalist and empiricist interpretations, illustrated by the example of applied geometry -- Strictly Universal Statements and Singular Statements -- Implication and general implication -- General implication and the distinction between strictly universal and singular statements -- Universal concept and individual concept-class and element -- Strictly universal statements-the problem of induction and the problem of universals -- Comments on the problem of universals -- Back to the Pseudo-Statement Positions -- Return to the discussion of the pseudo-statement positions -- Symmetry or asymmetry in the evaluation of natural laws? -- The negative evaluation of universal statements. Critique of the strictly symmetrical interpretation of pseudo-statements -- An infinite regression of pseudo-statements -- An apriorist pseudo-statement position -- Interpretation of the critique up to this point; comments on the unity of theory and practice -- A last chance for the pseudo-statement positions -- Pseudo-Statement Positions and the Concept of Meaning -- The concept of meaning and logical positivism -- The concept of meaning and the demarcation problem-the fundamental thesis of inductivism -- Critique of the inductivist dogma of meaning -- Fully decidable and partially decidable empirical statements-the antinomy of the knowability of the world. (Conclusion of the critique of the pseudo-statement positions.) -- The dialectical and the transcendental corroboration of the solution -- Is the problem of induction solved? (shrink)

Although the discussion about feasibility in political theory is still in its infancy, some important progress has been made in the last years to advance our understanding. In this paper, we intend to make a contribution to this growing literature by investigating the proper place of feasibility considerations in political theory. A motivating force behind this study is a suspicion that many presumptions made about feasibility in several current debates—such as that between practice-independence and practice-dependence, ideal and non-ideal (...) theory, and political moralism and political realism—are too rigid and underestimate the numerous different ways in which feasibility concerns may enter into our theorizing. To chisel out this feasibility space, our aim is to suggest two metatheoretical constraints on normative political principles as intuitively plausible, the so-called ‘fitness constraint’ and the ‘functional constraint’, through which we elucidate five central aspects for determining proper feasibility constraints of an account in political theory. (shrink)

Darwin’s main contribution to modern biology was to make clear that all history of life on earth is dominated by a simple principle, which is usually summarised as 'descent with modification'. However, interpretations about how this modification is produced have been controversial. In light of the data provided by recent studies on molecular biology, developmental biology, genomics, and other biological disciplines we discuss, in this paper, how Darwin's theory may apply to two main 'types' of evolution: that occurring in (...) the prebiotic world and that regarding the acquisition of major key-innovations differentiating higher-taxa, which makes up part of the so-called macroevolution. We argue that these studies show that evolution is a fascinating, complex and multifaceted process, with different mechanisms drivin it on different occasions and in different places. (shrink)

Using his intimate knowledge of John Locke's writings, John W. Yolton shows that Locke comprehends 'human understanding' as a subset of a larger understanding ...

In Plato’s Timaeus, two different theories – the Receptacle theory and the geometrical particle theory – are presented to explain change in the natural world. In this paper, I argue that there is tension between the two theories. After examining several possible solutions for this tension, I conclude that Plato does not present it as something ready to be solved within the dialogue but, rather, as something to be understood in a way that maintains both theories. Finally, (...) I also argue that the contrast between the two theories in the Timaeus derives from a similar contrast in the Phaedo. (shrink)

The conceptual pair of own-world and common world constitutes an archaic pair, originally introduced by Heraclitus. More than two millennia after its introduction, Binswanger picked up this conceptual pair in the attempt to understand existence and mental disorder. Ever since, this conceptual pair has been part of the conceptualization of schizophrenia in phenomenological psychopathology. However, the concepts of ídios kósmos and koinós kósmos have seldomly been elaborated and expanded upon, and certain unclarities rest within the literature. This paper (...) resolves some of these unclarities and contributes to a theory of anthropological proportions, which furthers our understanding of ídios kósmos and koinós kósmos. The paper begins with an exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of this conceptual pair, i.e., it discusses the concept of world, what is understood by common world, and what it means to live in an own-world. This theoretical exploration segues into an in-depth analysis of the alterations of experiential life in schizophrenia, which can be illuminated via this conceptual pair. It is further argued that this conceptual pair contributes to an understanding of the puzzling phenomenon of double bookkeeping. Finally, the paper concludes in a discussion of clinical implications of this conceptual pair, stressing the importance of a mindfulness of the alterations to the ídios kósmos and koinós kósmos in schizophrenia. (shrink)

While developing his theory of world 3, Popper rejects two claims made by Plato: first, that the inhabitants of world 3, ideas, are a source of ultimate explanation, a divine revelation of truth, and second, that these ideas are unchanging. I will rehabilitate the second claim. Man does not construct world 3 by creating his theories, nor is it a source of ultimate truth. Instead, world 3 is discovered by man, and it destroys some of (...) his theories: destructive Platonism. I discuss the impact of the modified position on the Grundlagenstreit in mathematics, taking into account Gillies’s constructive Aristotelianism. I then turn to the philosophy of computers and discuss how destructive Platonism relates to computers and the Internet. In particular, I criticize Popper’s claim that computers are nothing but elaborate pens as too pessimistic and incautious, and the fashionable “singularity” theory as too optimistic and at the same time too fatalistic. In my closing remarks, as an antidote against both views, I provide a more modest and reasonable speculation about the ultimate goal and meaning of life. (shrink)

Two questions often shape our view of the world. On the one hand, we ask what there is, on the other hand, we ask what there ought to be. Empirical research and normative theory, the methodological traditions concerned with these questions, entered a difficult relationship, from at least as early as around the time of the advent of modern sciences. To this day, there remains a strong separation between the two domains, with both tending to neglect discourses and (...) results from the other. Contrary to a verdict of strict segregation between »is« and »ought«, there are, nowadays, various attempts to integrate both theoretical approaches. This calls for a newly intensified discourse on the relation between empirical research and normative theory. In this volume, scholars from different disciplines – including psychology, sociology, economics, and philosophy – discuss possible desired or undesired influences on, and limits of, the integration of these two approaches. (shrink)

The past thirty years have been marked by an energetic renewal of traditional just war theory. Now changes in relations among nations and changes in military technology may require a recasting of the just war ethic comparable to its recasting by Vitoria and Suarez in the six-teenth century. After reviewing the way the just war tradition met the practical tests posed by Vietnam, nuclear deterrence, and the Gulf War, I will argue that the erosion of the Westphalia legacy and (...) the collapse of the cold war press two questions upon us: Can any modern war be defended as just? Are there resources in the just war tradition for assessing what constitutes morally defensible, even morally required, intervention by one state in the affairs of another? (shrink)

Suppose that the ultimate point of ethics is to make the world a better place. If it is, we must face the question: better in what respect? If the good is prior to the right — that is, if the rationale for all requirements of the right is that they serve to further the good in one way or another — then what is this good? Is there a single fundamental value capable of underlying and unifying all of our (...) moral categories? If so, how might it defeat the claims of rival candidates for this role? If not, is there instead a plurality of basic goods, each irreducible to any of the others? In that case, how do they fit together into a unified picture of the moral life? These are the questions I wish to address, in a necessarily limited way. To many the questions will seem hopelessly old-fashioned or misguided. Some deontologists will wish to reverse my ordering of the good and the right, holding that the right constrains acceptable conceptions of the good. For many contractarians, neither the good nor the right will seem normatively basic, since both are to be derived from a prior conception of rationality. Finally, some theorists will reject the classification of moral theories in terms of their basic normative categories, arguing that the whole foundationalist enterprise in ethics should be abandoned. In the face of these challenges to the priority of the good, and in light of the many current varieties of moral skepticism and relativism, I cannot provide a very convincing justification for raising the questions I intend to discuss. (shrink)

Turing's World is a self-contained introduction to Turing machines, one of the fundamental notions of logic and computer science. The text and accompanying diskette allow the user to design, debug, and run sophisticated Turing machines in a graphical environment on the Macintosh. Turning's World introduces users to the key concpets in computability theory through a sequence of over 100 exercises and projects. Within minutes, users learn to build simple Turing machines using a convenient package of graphical functions. (...) Exercises then progress through a significant portion of elementary computability theory, covering such topics as the Halting problem, the Busy Beaver function, recursive functions, and undecidability. Version 3.0 is an extensive revision and enhancement of earlier releases of the program, allowing the construction of one-way and two-way finite state machines (finite automata), as well as nondeterministic Turing and finite-state machines. Special exercises allow users to explore these alternative machines. (shrink)

(1993). Two conceptual problems for the theory of Evolution: Causality and the explanation of emergence. World Futures: Vol. 38, Theoretical Achievements and Practical Applications of General Evolutionary Theory, pp. 123-129.

In the jurisprudence of constitutional courts around the world, there is an emerging trend towards an autonomy-based understanding of constitutional rights: increasingly, rights are interpreted as being about enabling people to live autonomous lives, rather than disabling the state in certain ways. This article investigates the conception of autonomy employed by courts by presenting two candidates and examining which of them explains the current practice of constitutional rights law better. The first, labelled the excluded reasons conception of autonomy, claims (...) that a person’s autonomy is violated if he is treated on the basis of certain impermissible—in particular, moralistic or paternalistic—reasons. It is concluded that, while this is a coherent understanding of autonomy, it cannot explain many of the rights that are widely accepted today. The second, the protected interests conception, argues that a person has autonomy interests in controlling certain domains of her life, and offers a scale on which the importance of the various autonomy interests can be assessed. The article demonstrates that this conception is coherent and adequately explains the current practice. The final section briefly explores some implications of this result for a comprehensive reconstructive theory of constitutional rights. (shrink)

This paper surveys the contributions to the study of argumentation in the two decades since the work of Toulmin and Perelman. Developments include Radical Argumentativism (Anscombre and Ducot), Communication and Rhetoric (American Speech Communication Theory), Informal Logic (Johnson and Blair), Formal Analyses of Fallacies (Woods and Walton), Formal Dialectics (Barth and Krabbe), and Pragma-Dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst). From the survey it is concluded that argumentation theory has been considerably enriched. If the contributions can be made to converge, (...) a sound basis will be created for developing educational methods for producing, interpreting and evaluating argumentative discourse. Thus, argumentation theory may be instrumental in improving the quality of democracy by furthering a reasonable management of differences of opinion. (shrink)

This book challenges the dominant approach to problems of justice in global normative theory and offers a radical alternative designed to transform our thinking about what kind of problem injustice is and how political theorists might do better in understanding and addressing it. It argues that the dominant approach, ideal moral theory (IMT), takes a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to the problem of justice. IMT seeks to work out what an ideally just society would look like, and only then (...) outlines our moral obligations in realizing that ideal. In other words, it ignores the realities of everyday politics. As Michael Goodhart asserts, IMT postpones engagement with actually existing injustices and distorts our understanding of them, and it normalizes many problematic features of our world. On the other hand, the leading alternatives to IMT struggle to make sense of the role values play in politics. This book sees justice as an ideology and develops an innovative bifocal theoretical framework for making sense of it. This framework provides two complementary perspectives on justice: a theoretical perspective that situates competing ideological claims about justice in a broader political context and a partisan perspective that evaluates the structure and coherence of particular conceptions of justice. As opposed to IMT, it focuses on barriers to justice and advocates an activist political theory that takes sides in political struggles against injustice. Goodhart argues that theorists can help to generate the countervailing power necessary for social transformation through the work of articulation, translation, and mapping, work which contributes to a more comprehensive social science of injustice. (shrink)

Those who anticipated the demise of religion and the advent of a peaceful, secularized global village have seen the last two decades confound their predictions. René Girard’s mimetic theory is a key to understanding the new challenges posed by our world of resurgent violence and pluralistic cultures and traditions. Girard sought to explain how the Judeo-Christian narrative exposes a founding murder at the origin of human civilization and demystifies the bloody sacrifices of archaic religions. Meanwhile, his book Sacrifice, (...) a reading of conflict and sacrificial resolution in the Vedic Brahmanas, suggests that mimetic theory’s insights also resonate with several non-Western religious and spiritual traditions. This volume collects engagements with Girard by scholars of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and situates them within contemporary theology, philosophy, and religious studies. (shrink)

This article examines two distinct ways in which anticolonial thinkers in early twentieth-century Korea reconstructed their nondemocratic tradition in an attempt to justify (rather than take for granted) the claim of self-determination. The exposure to modern education and ideas of democracy prompted these thinkers to critically engage their tradition in the struggle for self-determination. That said, they could not simply abandon the cultural foundation of their nation. Japanese colonial rule drew its legitimacy from not only an assimilation ideology that the (...) Japanese and Koreans shared the same ethnic origin but also a developmentalist conception of the colonized that they were premodern and incapable of self-rule. To reject imperial domination, Korean anticolonial thinkers needed to invent out of their country’s nondemocratic tradition (1) an unassimilable nation/people (2) capable of self-rule. Drawing upon the political writings of two early twentieth-century thinkers in colonial Korea, Yi Kwang-su (1892–1950) and Cho So-ang (1887–1958), I discover from their political thought two nuanced approaches to this project of inventing “the people” in the colonial world. I argue that while Yi succeeded in rebutting the colonial ideology of assimilation, he fell into the trap of developmentalism. I contend that Cho, on the contrary, sidestepped this trap with his revisionist reading of the Confucian past as a history of democratic transformation, thus providing an immediate alternative to imperial sovereignty. (shrink)

An exchange between Christopher Tollefsen and Steven Jensen highlights the contrast between a theory of natural law that relies purely first-person account of intention and one that relies more on elements from the physical world. Tollefsen, a proponent of New Natural Law theory, argues that the fetus’s death in the Phoenix case was an unintended side effect of saving the mother’s life. Jensen criticizes NNL generally and particularly for this conclusion. He argues that facts outside the agent (...) make this procedure immoral. This essay provides a more neutral perspective on the debate by laying out each argument clearly and identifying the fundamental issues present in the discussion. A fundamental and probably irreconcilable difference involves whether certain intentions should be included in the species of an action or characterized as fairly or unfairly accepted side effects. Nevertheless, the differences between these two accounts are not as great as they initially appear. (shrink)

Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimentation. The book develops a unique approach to social contract theory that focuses (...) on diverse perspectives. It offers a new moral stance that author Ryan Muldoon calls, "The View From Everywhere," which allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement. This stance is used to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate despite seeing different perspectives. Rather than arguing for an ideal contract or particular principles of justice, Muldoon outlines a procedure for iterated revisions to the rules of a social contract. It expands Mill's conception of experiments in living to help form a foundational principle for social contract theory. By embracing this kind of experimentation, we move away from a conception of justice as an end state, and toward a conception of justice as a trajectory. (shrink)

I first ask what it is to make up a story. In order to answer that question, I give existence and identity conditions for stories. I argue that a story exists whenever there is some narrative content that has intentionally been made accessible. I argue that stories are abstract types, individuated by the conditions that must be met by something in order to be a properly formed token of the type. However, I also argue that the truth of our story (...) identity attributions---sentences like, "Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is the same story as JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings''---are relative to their context of use, so that the same attribution of identity might be true in one context or false in another because of a change in what's being said about the works in the differing contexts. From those existence and identity conditions, I draw the conclusions that story is best understood to be a phase sortal of some abstract types, and that what it is to make up a story is to identify a type of narrative representation and its content, such that the content is neither based on actual events nor on the content of other stories to an objectionable degree. In chapter 2, I ask what it is for a story to be complete. I argue for the general meta-thesis I call "Completion Pluralism", viz. that there are many kinds of artwork completeness, many corresponding senses of 'complete', and no kind of artwork completeness is objectively more important than any other. I give a pair of arguments against those who would deny Completion Pluralism, endorsing Completion Monism instead. First, I show how Monistic analyses of the one (or one most important) kind of artwork completeness fail. I also show that each Monistic theory's failure is contingent on the assumption of Completion Monism: the denial of Completion Monism dissolves each argument against the extensional adequacy of extant theories of artwork completeness. I argue that this is all best explained by the idea that Completion Pluralism is true. Second, I argue that Completion Pluralism fits best with the variety of interests that we bring to questions about artwork completeness: there is no single or overriding concern we have when we want to know whether an artwork is complete. We shouldn't expect completeness to be a single sort of thing, then. I show how to put Completion Pluralism to work by identifying different kinds of artwork completeness in artworks. Finally, I introduce a new kind of completeness particular to stories, what I call "narrative completion", and show how it's distinct from other kinds of completeness discussed. In chapter 3, I argue that the distinction between fictional and non-fictional stories is the degree to which stories are made-up. In short, a fictional story is a made-up story. I first provide a couple desiderata for thinking about theories of fiction, then show how the two most popular extant theories of fiction---the prop theory and the genre theory---fall short in meeting one or more of those desiderata to some extent. I then show how the theory that fictions are made-up stories better meets the desiderata, using my account of what it is to make up a story from chapter 1. I turn to explicitly ontological matters in chapter 4. Addressing the question of what stories are, I show that both the theses that they are eternal and immutable and that they are created and historical seem plausible for independent reasons. I discuss a schema of an argument some philosophers who hold to the latter view (those I call "Creationists") attempt to give for their view. However, I show how those who hold to the view that stories are eternal and immutable ("Platonists") can account for all the same appearances as the Creationists, usually at least as well and sometimes with a better accounting. Similar, deductive arguments for Platonism will give rise to similar responses from the Creationist, however. In the end, then, the style of argument in particular is unlikely to advance the discussion much. Finally, I attempt to advance the discussion by building an abductive case for Platonism. First, I vindicate a particular metaontological methodology for the debate at hand, a methodology that allows for "revisionary" outcomes in our ontologies of art objects. Second, I build a case for Platonism by arguing that it best explains a number of features of stories discussed in the previous chapters. Moreover, I argue that Creationism is committed to an implausible account of how some abstract objects come into existence. Given the combination of those facts, I argue that we should prefer Platonism to Creationism. (shrink)

According to one point of view, emotions are recognitions of truths of a certain kind -- most probably valuative truths (truths to the effect that something is good or bad). After giving the standard arguments for this view, and also providing a new argument of my own for it, I set forth two arguments against it. First, this position makes all emotions be epistemically right or wrong. But this view is hard to sustain where certain emotions (especially desire) are concerned. (...) Second, this position is guilty of presupposing what it is meant to explain; for it makes emotions be a pre-requisite for the very value judgments with which emotions are supposed, according to that theory, to be identical. (shrink)

How do metaphors and symbols embedded in sacred texts and narratives refigure meaning in the worlds of texts and readers? This is one of the problems that drives Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic theory, where symbolic language moves beyond the constraints of denotation to enable us to interpret human experience in a plurivocal, rather than univocal ways. In my essay I examine Ricoeur's adherence to a disclosive theory of language, borrowed from Heidegger, and argue that it does not provide an (...) adequate theory of linguistic reference. Ricoeur does not give a structural explanation for how it is that the new meaning provided by metaphors actually impacts upon the cognitive dimensions of the interpretive process. I argue that Hegel's analysis of language is stronger in that it includes a discussion of the perceptual and cognitive stages of understanding, which include moments of hermeneutic "reversal"; here we see how it is that language simultaneously refers to and mediates experience. This might become the basis for developing a stronger explanatory model of the refiguring process which Ricoeur describes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Difficult Road to Deciding on CircumcisionAnonymous TwoAnonymous TwoWhen I got my results back from my noninvasive prenatal testing, NIPT and found out I was going to have a little boy, one of my first thoughts was, "I don't want to circumcise him," which sounds silly because I just found out the gender of my baby and my first thought is about his genitalia. The idea of growing and (...) carrying this perfect little baby for nine months and then hurting him was unthinkable to me. I simply did not want to hurt him. The idea of it made me feel sick. Anytime the subject came up, I would protectively put my hand over my belly. And I do admit there were a lot of times I wished I was having a girl so I didn't have to deal with the circumcision debate.There was a lot of conversation between myself and my husband about it. My husband was adamant about getting it done. He referred to uncircumcised penises as "snake penises" and said our son will be made fun of for being different. He said it would be easier for him to clean and when he's old, he won't have to worry about infection. I would counter with, "well what if he falls in love with a girl from a culture that doesn't circumcise? She will think his penis is weird." The more we talked about it, the more ridiculous it felt thinking that far in advance and all these hypothetical situations he might get in over his penis. My parents wanted it done for religious reasons, but that wasn't a factor for me. My mom kept saying it's in the Bible and it needs to be done. My boss is Jewish and she joked that I could just convert to Judaism and the choice would be taken away from me so I didn't have to stress over it. Everything I read on my mommy groups and sites like Reddit called male circumcision child abuse and stated how barbaric it was. Terms like "genital mutilation" were thrown around a lot, and I didn't want to be part of a group that was seemingly looked down upon by so many.I spent my whole pregnancy saying how much I did not want to circumcise my baby. About a week after he was born and we were starting to get settled, my husband started to call around trying to get him an appointment for circumcision. It was unusual to do it this way, as typically it's done when babies are still in the hospital. But the hospital wasn't doing circumcisions because it was elective, and they weren't doing elective procedures because of COVID. At his first doctor's appointment, I talked to our pediatrician about it. She is Indian and told me she didn't circumcise her boys and said that it was very normal in many parts of the world to not do it. I would watch her pull back the skin to check it for fibers and think, "Is it really that bad to keep it? It's just skin." Our pediatrician didn't do it, as she doesn't perform procedures in the office, and she gave us some names of doctors that were supposed to be doing it. My husband called them all and none of them were doing circumcisions either. Finally, my husband found a doctor, but he was booked out for almost a month and a half. With no other option, we made the appointment. I was not thrilled about it, and made my husband do all the calls and arrange it because I did not agree with it.What made me change my mind about circumcising him was I didn't want him to be different. My husband assured me this was the best choice and he was very concerned our son would be bullied for being different. I have a good friend that is a nurse in a long term care facility currently. I called her and asked if it was really that bad for old men to care... (shrink)